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Community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in Saudi Arabia

PURPOSE: To study the utilization of the ophthalmology clinic in a primary care setting through number and type of ophthalmic cases that were managed. METHODS: This retrospective descriptive study included all ophthalmic cases treated during a 6-month period in a private sector primary healthcare ce...

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Autor principal: Khathlan, Afaf A. Bin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Wolters Kluwer - Medknow 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8486025/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34667930
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/1319-4534.325781
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author Khathlan, Afaf A. Bin
author_facet Khathlan, Afaf A. Bin
author_sort Khathlan, Afaf A. Bin
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE: To study the utilization of the ophthalmology clinic in a primary care setting through number and type of ophthalmic cases that were managed. METHODS: This retrospective descriptive study included all ophthalmic cases treated during a 6-month period in a private sector primary healthcare center ophthalmology clinic in 2018. We measured clinic utilization by recording the proportion of patients treated among the total number of patients treated in the center, the number of visits during different times of day, and the most common diagnoses encountered. RESULTS: Among 32,518 visits to the health center during the study period, we recorded 422 (1%) visits to the ophthalmic clinic. First visits were 406 cases, and 16 were the follow-up visits. Patients tended to utilize the evening sessions more than morning sessions, with a median of 23 patients per month. Refractive errors in 89 cases (22%) and blepharitis in 88 cases (22%) were the most common diagnoses encountered. Visually significant cataract was not recorded in this study with a prevalence of 31% (14/45) in the >50 years of age group. Seven cases (2%) required referral to hospital during the study period for secondary eye care. CONCLUSION: Since most cases in this study were managed in the clinic with good utilization of the services offered, we concluded that a community ophthalmology clinic as a first contact would be useful in some primary healthcare centers. More studies are needed in different regions/settings before widely establishing the service in Saudi Arabia.
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spelling pubmed-84860252021-10-18 Community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in Saudi Arabia Khathlan, Afaf A. Bin Saudi J Ophthalmol Original Article PURPOSE: To study the utilization of the ophthalmology clinic in a primary care setting through number and type of ophthalmic cases that were managed. METHODS: This retrospective descriptive study included all ophthalmic cases treated during a 6-month period in a private sector primary healthcare center ophthalmology clinic in 2018. We measured clinic utilization by recording the proportion of patients treated among the total number of patients treated in the center, the number of visits during different times of day, and the most common diagnoses encountered. RESULTS: Among 32,518 visits to the health center during the study period, we recorded 422 (1%) visits to the ophthalmic clinic. First visits were 406 cases, and 16 were the follow-up visits. Patients tended to utilize the evening sessions more than morning sessions, with a median of 23 patients per month. Refractive errors in 89 cases (22%) and blepharitis in 88 cases (22%) were the most common diagnoses encountered. Visually significant cataract was not recorded in this study with a prevalence of 31% (14/45) in the >50 years of age group. Seven cases (2%) required referral to hospital during the study period for secondary eye care. CONCLUSION: Since most cases in this study were managed in the clinic with good utilization of the services offered, we concluded that a community ophthalmology clinic as a first contact would be useful in some primary healthcare centers. More studies are needed in different regions/settings before widely establishing the service in Saudi Arabia. Wolters Kluwer - Medknow 2021-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8486025/ /pubmed/34667930 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/1319-4534.325781 Text en Copyright: © 2021 Saudi Journal of Ophthalmology https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
spellingShingle Original Article
Khathlan, Afaf A. Bin
Community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in Saudi Arabia
title Community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in Saudi Arabia
title_full Community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in Saudi Arabia
title_fullStr Community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in Saudi Arabia
title_full_unstemmed Community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in Saudi Arabia
title_short Community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in Saudi Arabia
title_sort community ophthalmology clinic utilization and morbidities results from a private primary healthcare center in saudi arabia
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8486025/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34667930
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/1319-4534.325781
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